B.Q Book Four: The Black Queen's War

Chapter 5: Insurgency

A quick signal, and the two witches sprang into action. Their wands swished at the rest of the staff, and everyone froze in place. Only the man behind the desk was left untouched, and his reaction to having two of his bodyguards seemingly attack was understandable. Distracting, but understandable.

"Please calm down, Mr. Minister," Amelia said. The invisibility cloak fell from her shoulders to shimmer on the floor like a pool of quicksilver. "I apologize for the theatrics, but I have few ways to arrange a meeting with you these days."

"And you couldn't have used that abominable painting of yours?" he snapped, pushing his glasses up his nose again. "Or even waited until this meeting was over?"

"You staff meeting offers us the greatest privacy, and unfortunately no, the painting is out of my reach for now. I have already delayed this discussion too long as it is."

"Wonderful. What dire news have you brought this time?" he demanded.

Dire news? Amelia shook her head and waved her wand within the office's fireplace to destroy its connection to the Floo network. He had no idea. Not yet, anyway. "The kind that is not appropriate for sarcasm. It pertains to the Inferii attack a few days ago."

"A few— The zombies?! Of course those were your doing!" He nearly threw his pen at the desk. "Do you have any idea what a disaster that's been to contain?! Front page on every red top! Thank God it's just those for now, but how long before there are enough pictures that real newspapers start taking an interest? Rotting bodies and monsters and people in cloaks throwing around fire." Shooting her a short glare, he thought aloud, "That Fudge character never went into a lot of detail about just what being Minister of Magic entailed, but I seem to recall that keeping your people under control and out of sight was part of it. Was I mistaken?"

She ignored the jibe and conjured a chair to sit in, proper decorum for these kinds of meetings be damned. "I am well aware of the scale of this disaster. I lost twelve men keeping it contained so you didn't have to explain the deaths of a few hundred of your citizens. Twelve good men, and at a time I don't have any wands to spare.

"Which brings me to the reason for my visit. We will not be able to provide as much assistance as we normally do when it comes to hiding our activities from your general populace. We will do what we can, but we have several other issues that we need to deal with that take priority."

"Typical," he muttered. "What is it this time? Another escaped convict? Shipping monsters into the country?"

"You recall our discussion last time about the terrorist leader who somehow came back to life and wanted to take over the country?" He nodded. "While the bulk of our forces were out dealing with the Inferii or the bombing of our major commerce center, he stormed the Ministry building with most if not all of his own followers and seized it. I escaped, as did most of my department heads, but the building itself and everything within is currently under Death Eater control. Reclaiming it is where the majority of our efforts will be focused."

"That is a problem," he agreed. "This is the same terrorist who engineered the attacks at the cricket game and the flats last year?" She nodded. "Then in the interest of both our nations, I would be happy to offer whatever assistance I can. If it's additional men you need, I can bring this to the Minister for Defense and from there raise the matter with the Queen. Though you'll probably need to be at those meetings, too, if only to prove that I haven't lost my mind babbling about magic," the other Minister mused quietly.